


Injuries

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M, Massage, TNA, The New Avengers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-TNA. Steed returns home after a rough few days and Emma gives him a massage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Injuries

Under ordinary circumstances, the apartment door closing at two in the morning would have had Emma out of bed and rummaging for a gun in the dresser drawer. But the familiar tread – a little slower than usual – on the soft carpeted floor let her know who was entering her London flat so unceremoniously at 2 a.m.

“Steed!” she called, laying aside her book. There was a pause, and then in he came.

He looked more than tired – he looked exhausted. Dark circles underlined his eyes, sunken and bleary in his drawn face. When he entered the room he moved with a careful tenderness that spoke of some hidden injury. But he smiled when he saw her, his face lightening a bit. 

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, and dropped his shoes on the floor by the bed.

“You know me: insomniac.”

Steed attempted a grin. “I am a bit late.” 

“Difficult assignment?” 

“Three days sleeping in the back of a Land Rover, two sleeping on the ground.” 

He sank down on the bed near her feet and laid back across it. 

“I’m too old for this.” 

“You’re just tired.”

Emma pushed that one recalcitrant curl back and let her fingers linger on the dear lines of his face. Exhaustion, plain and simple.

“Why don’t you get ready for bed, Steed?” 

He winced again when he stood up and she watched as he crossed the room and found his pajamas in the lower drawers of her dresser. He moved with too much care – a slight limp in one leg, carrying his right shoulder higher than his left. When he glanced at her and then headed towards the bathroom, Emma was out of bed like a shot.

“No you don’t!” she said. “You only ever try to change in the bathroom when you’ve been injured. Turn around.”

“Emma…”

“I’ll find it eventually, Steed.” 

He sighed and unbuttoned his shirt. His right side was a mottling of black and purple bruises – knuckle marks - and his shoulder splotched with the red of broken blood vessels; but the worst of it was the massive black bruise on his lower back. 

“The doctor’s already looked at it,” he said. “Nothing broken.”

“Who did it?” Emma tried to keep the anger out of her voice. Someone should have stopped them, whoever they were. 

“I did. Let them get the drop on me, that’s all. Damn silly thing." 

“No one to cover your back?”

"It wasn't anyone's fault but my own," he said pointedly.

She touched the bruise with tips of her fingers and he winced again. 

“Sorry. Pajamas,” she said, “then I’ll point some ointment on it.”

“Don’t make a fuss.”

“Don’t argue.”

Emma went into the bathroom for the muscle ointment, which would give him some measure of relief. Ten years older, and still just as recalcitrant to admit to any kind of weakness, especially in front of her. How often had she discovered marks, abrasions, even wounds, that he declined to see to, even tried to hide from her? Noisy enough when he had a black eye and thought he could get some sympathy for it, yet utterly silent when it came to the more dangerous injuries. As if she didn’t know every inch of his body, every scar from the inoculation mark on his shoulder to the bullet wound in his thigh. Many things had changed, but there were just as many that had not.

When Emma came back into the room, Steed was seated on the edge of the bed with his shirt off, tenderly fingering a small bruise on his right side. Still as attractive at 55 as he had been at 45; perhaps even a bit more conscious of staying fit, now his age was beginning to tell.

“Lie down so I can put this on you.”

“It really isn’t necessary,” he said, but turned over all the same, stretching out with his face in the duvet.

Emma warmed the ointment in her hands as she straddled his back. 

“It’s necessary because I don’t want to listen to you complain for the next week, stumbling about like an old man with a cane, bemoaning your age and your infirmity just to get breakfast in bed.”

“I’d never!” he said, voice a little muffled.

“You always do.”

“Mmph. Libel.”

Then he grew quiet as her hands spread the ointment across his back and shoulders. There was much that she adored about Steed’s body, but she’d always felt special affection for the broad shoulders and planes of his back, soft skin and toned muscle. Purely aesthetic, of course, yet she was aware of her tendency to lay a hand on his shoulder or his lower back, even in public, drawing comfort from the warm skin beneath. So she caressed and massaged each muscle with loving attention, and enjoyed the tiny sounds he made as the tension ebbed from them.

She massaged the bruise as gently as she could. The skin was tender and the muscles knotted beneath; a sharp intake of breath tightened his muscles when she touched it. Emma felt unbidden anger at whoever or whatever it was that had done this to him. She was as protective of him now as she’d ever been, but there was an added sense of helplessness when he came home broken and exhausted. She was unable to share the danger, and she felt, with a touch of unkindness she was not proud of, that neither of his younger partners were capable of helping him properly.

Emma reminded herself that Steed was an experienced agent, that he would be miserable sitting behind a desk and that she did not want that for him any more than she wanted him to cease breathing. But these moments, when she saw the toll his profession had taken on him and would continue to take, made her wish that he would stop before one more punch or one more gunshot ended the string of luck he lived on.

She leaned forward to kiss the nape of his neck and felt him stiffen at her lips' touch.

“I’m afraid I shan’t be able to rise to the occasion tonight,” he said, turning his head. “In fact, I question my ability to rise from this very comfortable position at all.” 

Emma flicked his ear with her nail. “Not everything is about sex, Steed.”

“Really? I thought that’s all you women were interested in.”

He moved enough to let her draw up against the headboard beside him, his head resting against her thigh.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re good for something else,” she said, stroking his hair. “I just can’t recall it off the top of my head.” 

“Moving large pieces of furniture.”

“That’s it.”

He closed his eyes, nestling against the side of her leg as she continued to stroke his hair. Another part of Steed’s anatomy she deeply appreciated: soft, dense curls, now grey. But she appreciated more the effect it had on him when she ran her fingers through his hair, the calmness that seemed to spread through him at her touch. She could feel as the exhaustion of the day left his body, and it was gratifying to her ego to know that she could still give him some measure of peace. It was, in some ways, more intimate even than their lovemaking – which, she was happy to note, had lost none of the passion or skill that characterized their early years. Yet lying with him, touching him perhaps not chastely but with expectations of nothing, made her understand what it meant to truly love someone. 

“Mmmm. Emma,” he murmured, and wrapped one arm around her leg.

“Move over, darling.”

She slid down in the bed and reached over to turn off the light. The room filled with the dark-blue glow of night as light filtered in through the curtains from the street outside. Steed put his arm around her waist. 

“I like being here."

“In my apartment?”

“No. Here.”

He ran his hand down her neck and over her breast, and laid it to rest on her hip. 

“I like making love with you,” he mumbled, voice deep and sleepy.

“We didn’t make love, Steed.” 

“We will. Tomorrow.” 

“Yes.” 

“Lovely word.” He was nearly asleep. “Yes.” 

Emma nuzzled down into his chest and put her arms around him, taking care not to put pressure on his back. 

“Yes,” she whispered.


End file.
